It has been an awakening for the past couple of days that not every smartphone company is legit in the country. After the controversial launch of Freedom 251 smartphone by a Noida-based company, Ringing Bells, there is another Smartphone brand in question. But this time, there is no such gimmicky pricing was involved.

Mango Phone, or mPhone, a Kerala-based smartphone was presumed to change the smartphone market in the state with a handful of smartphone scheduled to launch. But at the big launch event hosted for the media house, the promoters of the company got arrested for allegedly duping the Bank of Baroda. Brothers; Anto Augustine, 32 and Josekutty Augustine, 24, from Kalpetta in Wayanad district got arrested for deceiving the Kalamassery branch of Bank of Baroda. The Augustine brothers were arrested from the launch venue in Kochi.

The reason for their arrest was that they submitted false land documents to get a loan and has been fleeing for almost a year from the bank. The third brother and Chairman of the company, Rojy Augustine, claim that it is suspicious that his brother got arrested on the big day of launch. He also claims to have no knowledge about the Bank of Baroda case. It was supposed to be the Kerala’s big moment of pride was turned into a nightmare.

According to the founders, they had invested around Rs 3500 Crore to launch their new mobile phone brand with an entire segment of 3G and 4G enabled handsets ranging from Rs 5,800 to Rs 34,000. As well as they were supposed to launch smartwatch and tablets on the February 29th launch event. Touted as the “iPhone Killer” by some we reports, there was no national news about this brand launching their smartphone.

Not like Freedom 251 and Smart 101 smartphones from Ringing Bells, the mPhone listed on company’s official website are entirely believable with specs and pricing they were meant to offer. Everything that is mentioned on the website can be easily manufactured in Shenzen, China. What’s interesting is that company claims to have their own manufacturing unit in the Chinese city, as well as a Research and Development centre in Korea.

Police states that the duo has been doing this with other banks as well, one of the other bank identified is State Bank of India (SBI). The case was registered against them by the Bank of Baroda authorities, and detailed enquiry is also underway. It is said that they duped Rs 2.68 Crore from the leading bank. They allegedly submitted the forged documents of property to get a loan, the land that was already pledged for Rs 11.57 Crore. Stay tuned in to get more updates on this.